New King James VersionTo Timothy, a true son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

King James BibleUnto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

Christian Standard BibleTo Timothy, my true son in the faith. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Contemporary English VersionTimothy, because of our faith, you are like a son to me. I pray that God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ will be kind and merciful to you. May they bless you with peace!

Good News TranslationTo Timothy, my true son in the faith: May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace.

Acts 16:1Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where he found a disciple named Timothy, the son of a believing Jewish woman and a Greek father.

Romans 1:7To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 4:17That is why I have sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which is exactly what I teach everywhere in every church.

1 Timothy 1:12I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, that He considered me faithful and appointed me to service.

1 Timothy 1:18Timothy, my child, I entrust you with this command in keeping with the previous prophecies about you, so that by them you may fight the good fight,

1 Timothy 6:20O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid irreverent, empty chatter and the opposing arguments of so-called "knowledge,"

(2) My own son in the faith.--Timothy was St. Paul's very own son. No fleshly relationship existed between the two, but a closer and far dearer connection. St. Paul had taken him while yet a very young man to be his companion and fellow-labourer (Acts 16:3). He told the Philippian Church he had no one like-minded (with Timothy) who would care for their affairs. He wrote to the Corinthians how Timothy was his beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who would put them in remembrance of his ways in Christ.

Mercy.--Between the usual salutation "grace and peace," in these Pastoral Epistles, he introduces "mercy." The nearness of death, the weakness of old age, the dangers, ever increasing, which crowded round Paul, seem to have called forth from him deeper expressions of love and tender pity. Jesus Christ, his "hope," burned before him, a guiding star her brighter and clearer; and the "mercy" of God, which the old man felt he had obtained, he longed to share with others.

Verse 2. - My true child in faith for my own son in the faith, A.V.; peace for and peace, A.V.; the Father for our Father, A.V. and T.R.; Christ Jesus for Jesus Christ, A.V. and T.R. My true child in faith. A most awkward phrase, which can only mean that Timothy was St. Paul's true child because his faith was equal to St. Paul's, which is not St. Paul's meaning. Timothy was St. Paul's own son, because he had begotten him in the gospel (1 Corinthians 4:14-16; Philemon 1:10) - his spiritual son. This is best expressed as in the A.V. by "in the faith" (comp. Titus 1:4, where the same idea is expressed by κατὰ κοινὴν πίστιν). Grace, mercy, and peace. This varies from the blessing at the beginning of the Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, by the addition of the word "mercy," as in 2 Timothy 1:2 and Titus 1:4 in the T.R., and also in 2 John 3 and Jude 1:2. It seems in St. Paul to connect itself with that deeper sense of the need and of the enjoyment of mercy which went with his deepening sense of sin as he drew towards his end, and harmonizes beautifully with what he says in vers. 12-16. The analogy of the other forms of blessing quoted above strongly favors the sense our Father rather than the Father. Whether we read ἡμῶν with the T.R. or omit it with the R.T., the idea of Father is contrasted, not with that of Son, but with that of Lord; the two words express the relation of the Persons of the Godhead, not to each other, but to the Church.